


Roane County Fair, June 1983.

by alteritymonster



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:00:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24937933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alteritymonster/pseuds/alteritymonster
Summary: This is an origin story of Will Byers's frog plushie. Love it or keep scrolling ;)
Relationships: Will Byers/Mike Wheeler
Comments: 4
Kudos: 28





	Roane County Fair, June 1983.

Roane County Fair, June 1983. Will watches his friends walk away as they all split off to spend some time with the families they've come here with tonight. Lucas bickers with his sister Erica, peevish with her a little, but good-naturedly so. Dustin follows a couple of steps behind his parents—who aren't getting along lately, Will knows, and he can see this hurts Dustin, though it doesn't always show through his sense of humor. Mike wears a brooding, sad expression on his face as he walks beside his parents and his sister Nancy, but it isn't any trouble with his family that is the reason.

Before the four friends had reached the spot on the midway where they'd agreed to meet back up with their families, they crossed paths again with those jerks, Troy and James. It had been a nice few weeks, the first of summer vacation, not running into the pair five days a week. Troy had been a bully since they were all in fifth grade, but since they'd all started going to Hawkins Middle School last year Will felt like it had become Troy's main mission in life to push him and his friends around. With everyone's parents nearby, he couldn't do too much to be a dick to them this time, but he could for sure remind them all of the cruel and stupid “nicknames” he'd bestowed on them last year. Midnight, Toothless, Fairy, Frogface.

_Frogface_ , Will doesn't even _get._ He doesn't see why Troy calls Mike that, spitting his awful bullying at Will and his friends, his face twisted up a little all pinched and mean. Except this time: after Troy had smugly asked Will what he, “the fairy,” thought he was looking at, Mike had shouted Troy's name sharply and stared at him, his cheeks puffed out, nostrils flared angrily, mouth pouting. Troy had only had to point—he actually pointed and laughed at Mike, like in some cartoon—and that stupid douchebag James, even Will himself, could see what Troy saw. Will blushes right now thinking about it, his heart and stomach still sinking, embarrassed for Mike, guilty Mike had been trying to protect Will, ashamed to _get_ it, for a moment. Will wants to see Mike's face only the way he does when that asshole Troy isn't making him feel that sick, _cold_ way about everything. Will wants to see Mike's face splitting open grinning when he leads all their friends in one of their D&D campaigns, his eagerness about everything and his joy just shining out of him easy, generous, always. Most of all, Will likes to think about Mike's face the way it looks when just the two of them ride their bikes near Mirkwood, joking and talking about all the worlds they imagine together.

“Will? Buddy, you okay?” Jonathan snaps him out of his worrying; he's still looking back as Mike walks away, head down a little, with Nancy and his parents. Will nods, gives his brother a little smile, and they start checking out the midway games. Mom warns both of them with a wink, palming each a $10 bill, not to play any of the games. They all know that they're rigged, they won't win anything; and they know they'll play some of them just for the fun of the dumb challenges. It's a water-gun game Jonathan and Will try first, burning two bucks each to push ping-pong balls onto whirling green plastic lily pads moving around in a small water-filled pool behind a little stage. Will knows he's not supposed to be able to win, but it seems like it should be possible; he just has to think carefully while he's aiming, almost slowing time down a little—

It's a surprise when the barker by the little stage calls out that we have a winner! Will has won a prize of his choice! Will grins, surprised but elated, and he asks his mom first if she sees anything she likes, that she might want. Joyce Byers smiles and puts her hand on her son's shoulder, tells him he's sweet but she doesn't need anything, he won the silly carnival game, he should pick something  _he_ wants. Will's eyes look over the prizes laid out, seeing a little atlas globe; some kind of old-fashioned Kewpie doll; a big towel like an American flag; and... a plushie, in the shape of a big cartoon frog.

And Will has an idea. Remembering the last time they all played D&D, and Mike playing for a moment a non-player character in a tavern. In Mike's voice judging Will the Wise, Mike's eyes crinkled to show a canny wisdom, to be more than he seems—and not, on the inside, all that he looks to foolish eyes to be on the outside. And then Mike giggling a little at his own performance, but then resuming a more serious expression, daring all of the party to take that awed and kind judgment of Will seriously. Will imagines now a look on Mike's face, laughing at that asshole Troy and that stupid nickname, laughing to think his own wonderful face looks kind of like a frog's face a little bit sometimes. It's so funny to Will right now that he can't hold in a big laugh like when Jonathan tickles him, which he's almost got his brother to stop doing. He'll take the plush frog and he'll give it to Mike as a present and they'll both  _get_ it and they'll just  _laugh_ about it and Mike will feel better. The stuffed frog, please.

The plan lasts until the moment after he sees Mike next, just before the moment Mike sees him. Mike is talking about something with his mom and sister, smiling like he was the moment just before they ran into Troy and James. And Will panics suddenly, re-thinking everything he imagined about how this would go, wondering if Mike  _will_ get it, if he can really help Mike feel okay, if Will even  _got_ it before. Will Mike think Will is just making fun of him too?  _Is_ Will making fun of him, even just in his mind, with this idea?

“Hey Will! What have you got there? Did you win something?” Will's got the frog under his arm, almost squeezed flat and only showing sideways, its overall shape not obvious to Mike, Will is fairly sure. He thinks fast, aiming for clever.

“Yeah! It's, uh. A towel!” _Aiming_ for clever. _Hitting_ dumbasstown.

“Like a... really fuzzy towel?”

“It's cool! I won it. All by myself. Um, for myself. I like.. towels.”

Jonathan and Joyce exchange looks. Joyce all pursed lips quirking upward, eyes away, tentatively, slowly putting some kind of two and two together lately. Jonathan just looking confused. Mike's face reared back a little, a picture of  _What?_ “Okay, uh, cool. Well, … you still coming over for D&D again tomorrow night?” Will smiles. Yes.

_A year and a half later. Will can sleep only fitfully, worried that a nightmare, or memory, or a..._ now-memory _, of the Upside Down, the... worried they're all in danger. He lies awake in the dark, discerning the shadow of Mike from the shadow of the sleeping bag he lies in from the shadow of... that dumb goofy frog plushie. A frog face. Mike resting his frog face on a... Will giggles softly to himself in the dark, hearing Mike's breathing._


End file.
